Tonight, greedy Republicans succeeded in overcoming the last of the legislative hurdles that once stood in the way of their odious plot to plunder America’s common wealth on behalf of their corrupt, predatory donor class.
By a vote of fifty-one to forty-eight, the United States Senate voted along party lines to pass the final version of the fiscally irresponsible Trump/Ryan/McConnell tax scam, which will hurt millions of American families while making the already rich even richer. It will also substantially increase the national debt, which Republicans professed to care about lowering during the presidency of Barack Obama.
Not a single Democratic senator voted for the Mar-a-Lago tax cuts, not even the ones from red states that Trump had been wooing over the past few months, so the Republicans cannot advertise their tax scam as a bipartisan accomplishment.
They — and they alone — own it.
“From the very start, [Donald] Trump and Republicans shut out Democrats, nonpartisan experts, and the vast majority of Americans because they knew this legislation would never survive the light of day,” said Washington’s senior United States Senator Patty Murray following the vote. “The result of their closed-door negotiations is a terribly partisan bill that funnels even more money to those at the very top, at the expense of hardworking families and future generations.”
“From the millions of Americans who will lose health coverage or see their premiums go up, to the middle class families who will see their tax bill increase in the coming years, to the pristine region of Alaska that will open to drilling, it’s hard to overstate the cruelty of the Trump-Republican bill,” Murray added.
“It’s also hard to overstate the hypocrisy of so-called fiscal conservatives who apparently didn’t think twice about blowing a massive hole in our deficit and endangering Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid— all so they could dole out more tax cuts to the ultra-wealthy and the Trump family.”
“While I am deeply disappointed [Donald] Trump and Republicans succeeded in jamming their destructive bill through without real hearings, true openness to amendments, bipartisan input — or allowing the Senator-elect from Alabama [Doug Jones] to cast a vote — I am extremely proud of the millions of people from every corner of this country who made their voices heard and who did everything they could to highlight the gross inequities of the GOP tax bill.”
“I want the American people to know this fight is not over,” Murray said in closing. “I urge everyone to join me in continuing to hold Republicans accountable for their votes — and to work with Democrats to reverse the pieces of this legislation that so heavily tip the scales to the wealthiest in the country.”
House Republicans still have to rubber stamp the final version of the tax scam a second time tomorrow, but that’s expected to be a formality at this point.
The real difficulty was always in the United States Senate, and Mitch McConnell overcame that difficulty by figuring out what price he’d have to pay to procure the votes of each the most recalcitrant members of his caucus… from Maine’s Susan Collins to Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski to Tennessee’s Bob Corker to Arizona’s Jeff Flake.
John McCain did not participate in the final vote on the bill due to complications of his cancer treatment. McCain, Collins, and Murkowski had previously helped sink several attempts to repeal the Patient Protection Act with Trumpcuts.
It’s hard to put into words how awful this bill is. We could call it unconscionable, destructive, sinister, abominable, vile, or rapacious.
Maybe it would just be easier to say that this bill is an act of evil.
We view this bill as an utter betrayal of the values and principles that this country was founded on, and if not repealed before its most damaging provisions go into effect, it could leave horrendous scars of all sorts in every state and every territory.
Here’s some analysis we’d recommend reading in order to understand the magnitude of the awfulness of this bill:
- Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: Final Republican tax bill skewed to top, hurts many low and middle income Americans
- Economic Policy Institute: The arguments supporting corporate tax cuts are wrong, and territorial taxation will make things worse
- Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy: The final Trump-Republican tax plan: National and fifty state estimates for 2019 & 2027
- Center for American Progress: The final tax bill is a bigger win for foreign investors than the entire working and middle class in Trump states
NPI thanks everyone who made calls, wrote letters, or sent emails in opposition to the Trump/Ryan/McConnell tax scam. By speaking out, we made it clear that we do not assent to this destructive, selfish, mean-spirited legislation.
Let’s remove from office every single republican in this country who supported the GOP tax scam.